The first thing you need to realise is obvious, and obvious things are the basis of the best schemes. You all start of with the same amount of resources. I will grant that countries back - to - back have a greater value, but as this is random i will go onto the start of my piece without discussing placement.

i have recently played a fair few games with marshals and generals, and i have noticed that most of the marshals and many of the generals do not rely on thier units power, they rely on thier brains. I will give you an example of this.

As you all know, lavs are the most cost efficients unit. i use this unit as the base of my forces, even more than most people. this usually works reallly well; just charge into a country with lavs and grind them down. Most players will put up a lav wall and we will toe to toe for a short time before i am victorious.

Smart players get a rocket launcher and back it up with lavs from a nearby country or a guard tower, which chews through my forces and takes much more of my resources to win.

xcomcommander.

The next point is defense.

Ok, so here is a common scenario. You have two countries back to back, with an enemy country bordering one. What tends to happen, is that you will build up a lav wall, with mortars and so on defening on either side.

What is often a favourable option, is to fall back from that bordering country to the border of the rear country. this is often most profitable when the rear county is a medium or large resource producer.

This is favourible for two reasons. the first is that it thrusts your opponent into a mobile role when he may well have set up with static attack in mind. if he has a wall of lavs then thats a lot of apcs needed. if he throws them in one by one you will chew them up. also, if he invests in tanks, they have the 5 hit points for 2$ as opposed to 8 hit points, making them easier to wear down.

On a phsycological note, if the front country of yours has indemnity, then your opponents eyes will light up and he will throw all his units into the grinder, hopefully leaving you to concentrate on perfecting your static defence while keeping the option to steam forward at any time. While falling back appears to hand the initiative to the enemy, in fact it does quite the opposite if handled correctly.

Important note; if he brings enough firepower to bear to clear all your units (lavs) from the front country in one turn, then you have lost the gamble and are in a very poor position. plan for this and maintain a large enough beach head in the front country.

Usefull units for support here are the rocket launcher and planes in support, as they can take out APC's in one turn. APC's have 3 hitpoints for 2$, and you are forcing your opponents hand into using them. Take them out as a general top priority in this situation. He will either keep his apc's back and so reducing thier usefullness while keeping thier cost; or spend more money on replacing them than he would like.

In a situation such as this where there is a coastal landing zone, take every opportunity to attack a naval transport with one bomber from a city of three bombers, as next turn that juicy transport can be picked off with all your bombers.

Above all, dont use this when your fighting me, or ill get annoyed and have to think of something even more crafty

Ok, from a game in progress on noble rust.

I had a reasonable size navy but my opponent had a massive one, comprised of an awfull lot of amphibians. I was going to lose my navy, and what i focused on in its death throws was the amphibians. they are a versatile unit and a high cost one for its hit points. I must admit i dont "get" naval warfare yet, however, it makes sense to take out amphibians first as he has nearly run out of money... so he can have all the naval power in the world without it nexcessarilly effecting the war.


It is a fairly close game, against a marshal. the advantage is with him but i dont believe it is entirely unwinable now i have killed so many of his amphibians.

xcomcommander

I would be cautious about using such a tactic. Never underestimate the value of the income of the front country. If you abandon it, you won't receive that income. If its a small, 2$ per turn isn't much, but it may be enough to hold off the enemy for a long time, while you assemble the big guns from the backup country.

If your border is breached and you can't cover it up, I agree that its better to fall back. By drawing the enemy to your backup country's border, you can bring reinforcements into play much quicker than your opponent can. But as you said, there is a great deal of risk. One miscalculation on your part, and your enemy may get indemnity and end your hopes. In one game I had on Antarcticus against Tiger, I tried this tactic and got severely pounced. He ended up driving for the countries capital, and placed 3 planes in there which decimated my ranks. That was the turning point of that battle, in which I was creamed.

Remember that in defending a country that still has guerrillas, you don't need to always keep a solid border, so you can hold the border with less units. Some of the best players I have played like to try to bait you to enter their country. The plan they have is to get the guerrillas, drive you back out, and then continue to get income every turn. This is a quick way to gain the advantage in the border fights that often occur in Massive Assault, where one tip of the balance will lead to one player's eventual victory. I remember Norat and Pitor using this tactic against me particularly effectively.

The other potential flaw with the bait scenario is that your opponent will not take the bait and just setup a defensive position to stop your country's production. Then you are out 2 production a turn and have to turn on the offensive to recapture your country. I agree with Maelstrom and suggest you keep alll production that you can(for as long as you can).

Falling back is a viable tactic where your opponent has you severely overmatched. In these scenarios, it is ussually better to fallback until you can put up a fight, rather than lose all your units without anything to show for it. However, one not obvious reason to hold a hopeless position is to reduce the city production before it is captured. The variety of available tactical options makes MAN great.

And think of all the new options we'll have on Phantom Renaissance. Holding a border just to burn up revenue and deprive the enemy of it might not work so well when the enemy can simply air-drop some units into the country.

another option is to retreat once you have used up your production and your enemy has planes that can rake over your invading units so your units are no longer subject to the planes (obviously not giving up your capital) and then continue the battle -- your opponent has to go farther and this is good until you can come up with a tank/transport combo. to take out the planes.